The New Road

Aliens of the Deep

I saw Aliens of the Deep on Sunday. It was very well done, but a little uneven. James Cameron voices over in the beginning of the movie that real science is a lot cooler than fake sci-fi CG. He's right. But he copped out at the end by putting in some super-fake CG with what looked like a recreation of the final scenes from the Abyss. That part, which is only about five minutes, is pretty bad, but the rest of the movie is great and definitely worth the money to see on the big screen in 3D.

At least Slashdot is honest

I got an email from Slashdot offering me a long list of books to review. I had most of them already, and my return mail to request the few I didn't have bounced. But what struck me most about the email was Slashdot's honest appraisal of their readership, whom they described as the Comic Book Guy. How true is that. Slashdot is all about the Comic Book Guy.

Not with guns, with words

Silvan Shalom had this to say on the anniversary of the liberation of Auchwitz:

"the brutal extermination of a people began not with guns or tanks but with words systematically portraying the Jews and others as not legitimate, something less than human."

Chilling.

Voting by list

The voting process in Iraq will look nothing like the voting process we have here:

The polling process itself is confusing many people. With 7,785 mostly unnamed candidates on the lists of 83 coalitions of political parties, voters have little idea who they will be voting for. Each list contains between 83 and 275 candidates, running on platforms championing all sorts of causes.

The 'candidates' lists have names such as 'The Security and Stability List', 'The Security and Justice List' and the 'Iraq List'. Many include fancy graphics, but few carry candidate photographs.

People will be voting by list without knowing the names or positions of their candidates. Is that democracy? Here is the reference.

Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State

PBS has been doing an excellent series on the Holocaust called Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. Lori and I watched the first in the series and I found it very haunting. In particular there was a segment about the commandant of Auchwitz who after the war wrote this in his memoirs:

Small children usually cried because of the strangeness of being undressed in this way, but when their mothers or members of the jewishsonderkommando comforted them, they became calm and entered the gas Chambers playing or joking with one another and carrying their toys. Hundreds of men and women in the full Bloom of life walked all unsuspecting to their death in the gas Chambers under the Blossom-Laden...

If that doesn't keep you up at night, especially if you have young children, frankly, I don't know what will.

I visited Dachau as a kid. I can still remember it as if it were yesterday. The Arbeit Macht Frei door. The double lined fences. The ovens. The barracks. The eternal fire. The museum with the ranked list.

People question the Holocaust and ask how it could have happened, even going so far as to say that the victims let it happen to themselves. What they fail to understand is that by the time it was in full swing the Holocaust was a complete system that was supported by propoganda, policy and weaponry. There was nowhere to escape to, no way to get away, it was everywhere.

It was just 60 years ago and already people struggle to remember it, or even deny that it happened. And genocide has happened several times since then. It's all so very depressing.

The transcript is complements of Google's new video search engine.

Media advice for soldiers

The Bush machine even creeps into how our soldiers speak. They are told to say:

We are a values-based, people-focused team that strives to uphold the dignity and respect of all.

As if it weren't clear enough already the values-based tag adds clarity to the Christian crusade focus of this war.

Switched offices this morning

We switched offices this morning. The new building is really nice. I almost have a window. Actually nobody has a window though I think my cube-mate could probably take down her wall and get a Window. Regardless, this is pretty close. Certainly a lot better than the basement I was in before.

BTW, this morning's Coverville is great. Lot's of energy in the tunes.

Introducing Oso

Here are some pictures of our new dog Oso:

We think he is Dobie mixed with Lab or something. Really he is just an all-American mutt and we fell in love right away. The best part is that he is a super cuddle-bug and will spend hours just cuddled up with you sleeping.

What does freedom mean?

Find out!

Awesome protest

It was a fantastic protest. The passion. The energy. The size of the crowd. It was electrifying.

It was depressing to hear fragments of Bush's speech from earlier in the day on the way home. He talked about freedom in other countries when he suppresses it here. He talks about facing down bullies when his own people bully dissenters and bully voters here at home. His version of freedom is corporate freedom to have it's way with willing countries. It's all hypocrisy. It's all lies.

I'm excited about the next protest that will happen on the anniversary of the war in March. It will be on a Saturday so I'm sure the size of the crowd will be almost an order of magnitude larger. I hope that Lori and Megan will go, and I'll try to convince my other friends to go as well.

If we can't get back the Presidency at least we can make one hell of a stink about the disastrous policies, lying, and two-face double dealing of the worst president ever.

The extent of compassionate conservatism is...

About one news cycle long. We are pulling our troops out of the the tsunami regions even as the death toll approaches 250,000.

We are a very uneducated people

From the Christian Science Mointor:

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians, and the Irish can tell you about the seven deadly sins or the five pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only 1 out of 3 US citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts - the four Gospels - and 12 percent think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can't be bothered to read what he has to say.

Anti-inaugural protest

I'll be attending the anti-inaugural, anti-war, anti-administration protest at the Civic Center tomorrow. I'd be hard pressed to avoid it since it's at my train station in the city. I'll get some pictures and do the all-black thing with the black armband.

Crappy 24 hours

What a crappy twenty-four hours I have had. Last night my home Internet connection went down, and in the process of trying to fix it I hurt my laptop. The damage isn't too bad, the lid just doesn't want to latch anymore. That was scary because I lost my other laptop in an office accident.

When I got into work this morning all of the computers on my desk had networking troubles. And the big Mac was having issues with getting it's date set right. Apparently it thought it was in 1968. Shouldn't computers simply refuse to set their clocks to dates before they even existed?

Then I lost about 500 units at poker last night, which isn't too bad, given my string of bad luck at the poker table over the last couple of weeks.

Then this afternoon my car had a flat and I ended up getting both back tires changed out because otherwise the whole car would have been unbalanced. One bright note has been that the car's alignment seems to be improved a little.

I can't bitch too much since the last couple of weeks have been relatively smooth.

Million Dollar Baby

I saw Million Dollar Baby with Mel last night. We both liked it. The target is obviously the Oscars. Mel said the movie was delayed from last year to get better Oscar picks this year. That's an interesting side-effect of having a monster like Return of the King coming out in a year.

Hillary Swank is a shoe-in for best actress. She did an amazing job in a role which called for both an emotional and a physical stretch. The best actor and best supporting actor are harder sells for me. Clint did change in the role over the film but I think the arc was too limited. Especially since the character is so old that the choice that he makes at the end of the film has too little personal impact.

Morgan Freeman is in better position for supporting actor. Whenever he is doing a voice-over you know it's going to be good. Unfortunately his character doesn't grow in the film. That's just a script limitation. Morgan could have done it, but the character has no arc. He is there to simply provide sage advice and some back story.

I doubt it will take best picture since, in my opinion, the Academy tends to go for movies that have good replay value. This is a great movie, but I doubt I would see it again.

I was drawn in by the movie, but at the same time I was caught up in thinking about the Bear Blues. It sounds silly but it amazes me that Megan at two has done something that I never have had the guts to do. To sing a song and play an instrument at the same time, and to record that. I told Mel about it and I said that I was happy that she had no fear about such things, that I wished she could live her life without fear. We talked about the pros and cons of conquering fear versus living without fear. I think there is a healthy balance in there somewhere.

Bear Blues

The 2004 release of Megan Herrington's seminal Bear Blues heralded a change from acapella to using accompanying instruments. This pivot point in the technology of music was hailed by both fans and critics alike.

Discriminating against god

We watched Door to Door last night. William H. Macy played a door to door salesman with cerebral palsy. Definitely a good movie. One of the people on his route was a gay man and his lover. At one point his is dropping off some house goods with them. He has his assistant along for the ride. As they are leaving he comments that they are good together, and his assistant is shocked and says that it isn't right with the Lord. William H. Macy's character then replies that god made everyone in his image and he doesn't make mistakes.

I liked that argument a lot and I wondered why it isn't used more. I then reminded myself that one of the big arguing points around gay rights is whether someone is born gay, or becomes gay. The argument always seemed pointless until now. If everyone acknowledged that people were born gay then they would fall into, 'God created man in his own image.'

'God created man in his own image' has to be a tough one for Christian bigots. You have only three ways to scoot around it and find a way to believe that God doesn't like the same people they don't like. You can say that someone isn't a man because they are a woman. You can say that someone isn't a man because they are sub-human. Or you can say that some is disqualified because of what they have done since they were born. Such are the issues with attempting to interpret the bible literally. The Christian version of trying to define what 'is is'.

For my part, I don't think Jesus would mince words. There is no justifying hatred and bigotry. There is no justification for the words of preachers who believe that the Tsunami is God's wrath on the heathen. That's just hate and bigotry, plain and simple.

CNN and Jon Stewart

I was amazed by Jon Stewarts appearance on Crossfire. He had the balls to tell the commentators that just spouting talking points and calling that debate was doing a disservice to America by denigrating the notion of idea exchange. That's great, but I figured it was just effort in vain. Turns out, CNN was listening, and they recently dumped both of their talking head opinion shows, and even cited Jon Stewart as they did it. Someone there obviously has a strong sense of journalistic integrity and the ability to distinguish between news and opinion.

Wouldn't it be great if Fox would do the same. Of course, with Fox the pundits are only half the problem. The talking heads who present the news are just as biased as the news they present. Fox, the new American Pravda.

No WMDs in Iraq, Part Deux

Not only were there no weapons, but they hid the fact that they stopped looking so that it wouldn't impact the election. Now why would it have impacted the election, one wonders? Perhaps because it invalidates the central premise for the war? But of course.

Oh well, as usual the accountability President takes the blame. Oh, wait. No, the blame this time goes to Rumsfeld. Ooops, nope. Cheney? Nope. Tenet! Of course. It was the intelligence guy who made the final decision to go to war. Oh, wait. No. He just said they had WMDs. It was Bush who actually made the decision. But he never takes responsibility for anything.

Stage Fright

I had to give a presentation in front of about forty people today. Normally I would be sweating buckets, but I didn't. I think I'm getting better with this stuff. Strangely I was the only person to come up with funny bits in their slide deck.

On an unrelated note, on the 25th both Alien vs Predator and Blue's Clues : It's Hug Day come out on DVD. Megan and I are very excited. I'd leave it to you to figure out who is excited about what.

Apple's genius

What other software company does these awesome yearly events where they present new products in such an exciting way. Apple has created this publicity system that has the Internet and the whole mac world, and by extension the iPod world, which is actually larger, wrapped around it's finger.

All of the rumors were true

Apple is getting worse at holding it's secrets. Today they came out with three new products all of which were rumored in advance. A word processor with an update to keynote, a very low-priced macintosh ($499), and two new low-end iPods that start at $99.

If I weren't laughing so hard

I'd be crying at how insanely ironic this is:

When Mr. Gibson walked to the press room lectern, he and Mr. Moore seemed delighted to meet each other.

"I feel a strange kinship with Michael," Mr. Gibson said. "They're trying to pit us against each other in the press, but it's a hologram. They really have got nothing to do with one another. It's just some kind of device, some left-right. He makes some salient points. There was some very expert, elliptical editing going on. However, what the hell are we doing in Iraq? No one can explain to me in a reasonable manner that I can accept why we're there, why we went there, and why we're still there."

This is what's going to screw Fox. The press (if that's what you call Fox) cannot rally around specific pop culture references. Fox has been playing a dangerous and stupid game of trying to split Americans into two camps, which they described as true American Christians who liked the Passion, and America hating sicko liberal scum who allied themselves with crazies like Michael Moore and liked Fahrenheit 9/11. Well, turns out, Fox's people are idiots, and the world just isn't that simple. That's what you get for believing in absolutes and simplistic black and white notions of categories of morality.

Fur coffee jacket

This is awesome.

Weekend Megan shots

If the door is open to the master bedroom Megan will often go in and hide under the covers and play peekaboo, or talk about being tired and going to sleep.

It may just be me but this picture just drills into my soul. I have it as my computer's background and it's tough to keep my eyes off of her eyes.

At one point all of us, Sadie included, were on the bed flaying around and having a grand old time:

To give some contrast to these pictures. Here is Megan from the same day, two years ago:

It was a really great weekend. I got to spend a lot of time with Lori and Megan. Lori got to see a cool movie. Megan got lots of chances to play, meet a new dog, see fish, birds, mice, and watch her new favorite movie, Shrek 2. BTW, I was totally wrong about Shrek 2, Puss'n'boots was good. The whole cast was good. The whole movie was good, if not better than the original.

Also, has anyone noticed some of the raunchy things Donkey says? As an example, as they are in the garlic coach on the ride to Far Far Away he is singing his version of "Rawhide". It's pretty quiet but some of the lines are things like; "Buy 'em drinks", "Milk 'em hard". According to some German post I found the lines are: "Hit it! Move 'em on! Head 'em up! Head'em up, move 'em on! Head 'em up! Rawhide! ..... Knock 'em out! Pound 'em dead! Make 'em tea! By 'em drinks! Meet their mamas! Milk 'em hard! Rawhide!"

Stoned Curry

I took the train in this morning, tuned into my podcast reader and listened to the most recent Daily Source Code. That's Adam Curry's podcast. He is in South Beach at a podcasters conference of sorts, and just about to go home back to jolly old England. This particular episode (Jan 10th) is notable only for the fact that he gets completely blottoed as he goes on.

At about two minutes in he tokes up. At about fifteen minutes in he comments about how he is really feeling it, well after I noticed that he was slowing down and couldn't seem to remember anything. At about twenty minutes in he tries to light up, his lighter goes out, and he gets some matches he got from a bar. What's amazing to me is that, at this point, he has the presence of mind to plug the bar he got the matches from. Then he torches up and you can hear the whole process. It's the funniest thing I have heard in weeks.

Still, it was a crappy podcast. He basically rambled about two things, the interview he gave to CBS news, and then some inter-podcast fight he was having with another podcaster. The CBS stuff was notable because he was told be his interview that Dan Rather wears a shirt with embroidered cuffs that read FEA for "F**k 'em all".

Amusing, amateurish and silly. That's why I love podcasting.

BTW, you can listen to the feed without getting a podcast client. Just click on the MP3 link under the Jan. 10th banner.

Am I Nuts

Lori thinks I'm nuts for saying that we are close to genocide here. I admit that it's an extreme statement. I was debating between saying that we were close or that there were precursors. I figured the former would raise some eyebrows, so I used it.

Are we going to see red/blue genocide anytime soon? I don't think so. Though I think that the continuing polarization, the random acts of politically based violence, the voter fraud, and the right-only media are very troubling signs.

What I think is more likely is anti-Islamic violence if there is another 9/11 style attack. It was nasty after 9/11, but it could be really bad now after years and years of people like Hannity and Limbaugh seeing anti-Islamic fervor.

Have a look around the hard right sites and what they say about Islamics. Fact is that the end-game of the "I am absolutely right, you are absolutely wrong" attitude that is at the center of the new Republican revolution is genocide. And right now one of the central themes coming out of the right-wing spin machine is; the reason we are losing the war is the bleeding hearts on the left aren't supporting our troops. As the war gets worse, with that seeded in peoples minds, we will start to see more violence.

Unfortunately the only thing that can pull us back from the brink is the Republican party itself. It's my hope that as the members of the right start to jump ship as the party continues on it's gravitation towards the extreme right. It's one thing to be anti-abortion, it's another to support abortion clinic bombers, and it's still another to do the bombing. One is right, one is far right, and the other is extremist. As the whole party and it's rhetoric gravitate towards extremist, then hopefully enough folks who are just on the right will jump off the boat. Were are already starting to see more moderate members of the Republican party making noises against the party over the war. As it gets worse I hope noises turn into defections.

Anyway, am I nuts? Probably, but that's another story. I think we can all agree that the state of American politics and the state of our national debate is far worse than it has ever been. Now it's just a question of whether it will come back from the brink, or whether it will get far worse before it gets better.

Hotel Rwanda

I saw Hotel Rwanda tonight with Mel, Landon and Tim. It was a fantastic film. Moving and gripping. It shocked me even though I knew what had happened.

I listened to a lot of news reports, and read quite a bit about Rwanda when it happened. Genocide is something I pay careful attention to. What struck me about Rwanda was the way that radio was used as an instrument of mass killing. The talk radio hosts would tell the death squads where to go and whom to kill. This movie captured that very effectively. So it's worth listening to when you see it.

I don't think people realize who the talk radio in Rwanda sounds like the right wing radio we have here. You have talk radio personalities calling the Iraqis savages, subhuman and inferior, and calling for mass genocide in places like Fallujah. They go on to talk about how liberals are idiots, or are inferior, or subhuman.

When you start to comprehend the methodology of genocide (and this movie is a good start), you will see just how perilously close we are here. We use the same terms. Have the same level of extremism. And we have the same tools of communication. Actually we have even better forms of communication, which allow messages of hate to travel further and faster.

I know people must think I'm nuts for talking about the machetes in the night. I'm referring to Rwanda when I say that and this movie makes this threat plain. Watch the movie. Listen to the radio and to what the Hutus say. Then listen to Micheal Savage. It's happening here.

41% of Americans want Muslims in America to register with the government. Why?

News and such

Lori has been getting on me about not blogging. I've been blogging a lot about politics. Probably not the most interesting stuff.

Anyway, things have been interesting lately. I have a bit of a cold. Hopefully it will go before Tuesday when I have to give a big presentation, and Wednesday, where I interview the legendary Andy Hertzfeld for Bound Cast. Andy is one of the best programmers of all time. He was one of the original Macintosh programmers and recently wrote a book called Revolution in the Valley, which I got a Slashdot review on, as well as a Bound Cast review.

Bound Cast has been doing pretty well. I have a backlog of content. Which I should since I am the reviewer. I need to get in contact with Joel to get him started on some reviews.

I'm a little worried about the technical aspects of the Andy Hertzfeld interview. i need to find a quiet space at MacWorld to do the interview. Which is a challenge in itself. If I can't do that then I'll have to depend on the cardoid pattern of the microphones to catch more of our voices than of the people surrounding us. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to interview a living legend. If it screws up it will be a serious shame. One of the major reasons for the external work that I have been doing on CGN and BC over the last couple of years has been to be able to reach these types of folks, and I've been reasonably successful at it. But a face to face interview with Hertzfeld is a major score.

I've got a pending book proposal that is being reviewed right now. I submitted it through Studio B, which are my agents. I also have a two article series with IBM that is being edited and will go up mid-month. I have some other article proposals out there, but nothing with IBM at the moment.

I've seen more than a few movies recently. I watched Dodgeball last night over at Rebecca and Dave's place. That is a great movie. Extremely funny and well written. Surprisingly so, I have to admit. Resident Evil Apocalypse was very bad. Closer, which is in theaters now, is insanely well written, directed and acted. Flight of the Pheonix is pretty bad, but doable as a matinee. If you are looking for something a little older then I re-recommend 13 Days and Fog of War, as well as upping my review of Shrek 2, which has grown on me with multiple viewings.

We've been doing a lot on the house recently. We did a big trash pickup and got rid of a lot of stuff that we didn't need. The oven door on Megan's kitchen was destroyed by one of her friends. But the rest of the kitchen set is holding up. All of the Christmas decorations are down, but not put away yet. The Dyson seems to be keeping up with the Sadie hair and such, and we are looking to add another dog to the mix. But finding a dog is a big problem. You would think that we are ideal candidates for a dog, but such is not the case. Apparently having a young kid and an old-blind dog means that we only qualify for some dogs. Ugh. Still, there are a few in the pipe that we are looking at.

Let me see, what else. Megan is doing really well. She has a growing vocabulary but is still putting together sentence with lots of interstitial nonsense words. It's very cute though. Painfully cute. She is expressing opinions and for the time being it's fun to be able to satisfy her requests and watch her eyes light up.

More later. Dinner now.

No due process for you

The illegal Bush administration is scrambling to make it possible to incarcerate someone that they label as a terrorist indefinitely without access to the courts. Permanently suspending the person's access to due process.

Now you may agree or disagree with that. I certainly don't like terrorist acts when they are perpetrated against me or my countrymen. And I don't like the people that commit them. They should get very strict punishment.

That being said, I realize that the term terrorist is subjective. What's the old saying? One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Some thought experiments for you.

Were the 9/11 hijackers terrorists?

Are roadside bombers in Iraq terrorists?

Were the Washington DC snipers terrorists?

Were the Oklahoma city bombers terrorists?

Are abortion clinic bombers terrorists?

How about snipers that shoot doctors who perform abortions?

Terrorism, it's in the eye of the beholder. Terrorist, it's a subjective term. Before you get all giddy about how it's ok to torture a terrorist and how it's ok if we suspend them any right to be heard before a court, you may want to think about how the term terrorist can be applied broadly.

The secretary of education exclaimed after 9/11 that the teacher's union was run by terrorists. Bill O'Reilly calls the ACLU a terrorist organization. Perhaps we should ensure that laws we write and freedoms we suspend are based on actions and not labels.

Do you feel more productive?

Ever listen to the financial reports and wonder what is going on with productivity? Every quarter they talk about increased productivity, but do you feel more productive?

Productivity is the output of the company divided by the number of employees in the company. Very simple equation. So is everyone getting more productive each month? Nope. There are two ways to increase this number. The first is to lay people off and let the remaining workers share the increased workload. That's not a good sign. The other way is to lay people off and then replace them with contract workers (on shore, near shore or off shore) which aren't counted as employees. Another bad sign for employees.

So when you here the producitivity numbers go up and up just realized that likely means people loosing jobs to layoffs or outsourcing jobs overseas.

Here is a story about big layoffs this month with a promise of more jobs in the long run. Not holding my breath on that one.

Almost a sane policy

In a move that almost resembles a sane policy, the illegal Bush administration has declared that tsunami relief is a national security priority.

Billions of dollars in aid could be poured into Asia in a long-term plan to ensure under-development does not breed Islamic radicalism and terrorism following the tsunami disaster.

The US and Australia have identified a prompt and successful humanitarian aid effort in south Asia as a national security priority.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said a failed reconstruction effort could result in victims turning to extremism.

"If nations are poor, if they don't see hope, if they're riddled by disease, if no one is helping them, then radicalism takes over, they lose faith in democracy and they start turning in other directions," Mr Powell told CNN. "This is an investment not only in the welfare of these people, which in and of itself is a good thing to do; it's an investment in our own national security."

It was a sentiment Australian Government sources endorsed.

Duh. I wish Colin wasn't getting the boot. He's the only sane person in this administration.

Before I get my stuff done

I love this. It's spot on.

Google is cool

You can hone Google's image search down to a specific site. Which gives you the ability to get all the pictures of Ripley, Sadie and Megan.

Bush administration total failure

Bush's illegal administration is doing immeasurable damage to us. A huge section of the Muslim world suffers a major catastrophe, and we... delay, dilly dally, vacation, play it on the cheap, and then... finally... pony up a few bucks. It's an opportunity to change the hearts and minds of millions to rally around the Americans, and it's... squandered. This would have been the cheapest and best victory we have ever had in the war on terror. Iraq, which is supposedly the front on the war on terror, is costing us billions. We need to win hearts and minds there, to swing people to our side. We could have had that permanently in Indonesia, a place where we have been fighting terrorism for years, for a few billion in quick aid. But no... Bush would rather drive his truck around Crawford.

What a joke. This administration's arrogance, ignorance and incompetence is going to cause immeasurable damage to our reputation and our ability maintain order and influence. What a nightmare. This horrific nightmare disaster could have been a golden opportunity but it was wasted.